The 3rd C (Part 1): The foundations of a Can Do community
Need to make a quick cuppa? You can listen to this blog via The Can Do Approach podcast instead:
In our three part series on the 3rd C, community, Paul Stepczak will be looking at the foundational approaches you need, the essential ingredient that brings it all together, and will outline how to establish a Can Do community. Paul is a community practitioner with 18 years’ experience.
Communities are hugely complex; they come in different sizes, forms, each have different needs, different strengths, and alongside all of that, each has an intricate network of connections and relationships at a multitude of levels.
The traditional methods of doing things to our communities based on what we think we know and implementing so-called “solutions” conceived by a minority from outside of the community, simply don’t work.
Fortunately, with the increasing popularity of approaches like co-production and asset-based community development (ABCD), we are starting to work alongside our communities much more successfully.
As long as these foundational methods are clearly understood and practiced appropriately, then the possibilities of what communities Can Do to mobilise positive change are limitless.
Community is the 3rd C, but the first priority
The first step to using any of these methods is to ensure the community is on board as an equal partner.
Looking at ABCD, when compiling a list of assets it is imperative to remember that people, as the fundamental unit of a community, are the greatest and most important asset. Without engaged communities, and their social connections, delivering asset-based community development is impossible.
Similarly, a definition of co-production is where a process is co-designed, co-delivered and co-owned in equality and reciprocity. Once again, without the people who have the confidence and capacity to work alongside you, you can’t engage in genuine co-production.
So, how do you engage the community to play such an active and pivotal role on the things that can make a difference?
Community engagement
We hear the term community engagement quite often, but engagement comes in different levels and forms. Is someone turning up to an event engagement? How about completing a digital survey, or registering for an online newsletter? You could argue that all three are engagement, but it’s the level of how meaningful that engagement is that makes the difference. Meaningful engagement is where there is an exchange of benefit to both parties.
One way to bake in meaningful engagement is to adopt a third pillar, on top of ABCD and co-production: an asset-based, person-centred approach. This involves supporting individuals to identify and harness their own strengths in order that they feel independent, empowered, and confident enough to contribute and challenge on a level playing field.
In order to have a fully engaged community that feels empowered enough to contribute, and resilient enough to remain engaged regardless of any setbacks, all three of these approaches need to be implemented as a single ecosystem. These are not simply activities that are delivered today and forgotten tomorrow. They are cultures that need to be adopted and constantly updated; people change, needs change, communities change. It makes sense that to achieve a sustainable level of engagement, a cycle of continuous learning and adaptation needs to be built in.
Whilst co-production and ABCD are more widely adopted, that person-centred approach is less commonly seen, and it’s easy to understand why. Working with individuals is time-consuming, intense, unpredictable, complex, resource-heavy, and can even be intimidating for some. It’s certainly not something that can be taken lightly or delivered quickly, but execute it well and the rewards are unprecedented. So, let’s focus in on how to do that.
ABCD for individuals
One method we could use to practice an asset-based person-centred approach is perhaps more easily explained as ABCD for individuals. Using an ‘asset map’ to coach individuals to recognise their strengths based on five themes as identified by Oxfam Cymru’s “Sustainable Livelihoods Toolkit for Wales”, 2015:
Social assets – their networks and connections
Public assets – the services they can access
Human assets - their knowledge, skills and values
Personal assets – the material items that they own
Financial assets - income, access to finance
From the perspective of the participant, they gain a confidence-boosting list of strengths that they already have at their disposal. When they need to resolve problematic situations themselves, they can call on those strengths. Rather than being dependant on the closest or most relevant service.
In terms of that exchange of benefits to both parties, as a facilitator of that process you can gain an understanding of a person’s connections in the community, the venues that are important hubs, the services people rely on. There is a wealth of local intelligence to be gained from mapping out individuals needs and strengths, which can feed into similar exercises at the community level for something like ABCD.
However, it’s what results from that exchange of information that is the ‘gold dust’. It’s what many projects and programmes take for granted, but is the greatest commodity you can have with a community: trust. The activity of simply sitting down with someone and genuinely listening to them is sometimes enough to form a bond, and the foundations of a trusting relationship.
Engagement is about building trust, and without any meaningful exchange of conversation, that is really difficult to earn.
Working alongside someone to help them identify their strengths helps to achieve this. If you want the community to genuinely engage in your services, they will need to fully trust you before making any commitment.
Trust is so fundamental to the development of an engaged community that that’s our next topic in this series. In part two we’ll be looking at how to establish trust, the essential ingredient for a sustainable Can Do community.
